Border Crossing

by Rosie Thomas

  'We'll get there within the allowance, then,' I retorted stiffly. I went back to Phil and the car and lit the gas stove and cooked up one of the disgusting freeze-dried survival meals we had brought in the camp kitchen, and a big pot of noodles. The noodles made me think of the steaming bowl that Phil had brought for me, back at the Khumbu glacier near Everest Base Camp. The moment when I had really begun to like him.

  Phil ate the food with his usual relish, and drank some hot coffee, and started to look much better. Dan and JD and Chris and Howard and Melissa ate with us, and we talked sombrely about the morning. As their time came up all the cars surrounding us in the order moved off, but Phil and I sat where we were until in the end ours was the only car left under the golden trees. We needed the interval of quiet.

  There was another 257 km to cover before Golmud, so we couldn't sit in the afternoon sun for too long. Luckily the road that afternoon was almost empty, with long stretches of smooth tarmac occasionally alternating with little treacherous bursts of gravelly dirt. The scenery was monotonous semi-desert with inhospitable mountains crimping the horizon. Arid stretches of sandy plain were cut with dried-out river gulleys, and sprinkled with remote brown villages and herds of yak. We overtook quite a lot of rally cars on the way because Phil drove with a kind of silent, manic intent. I left him to it. We didn't need to talk – the route was so featureless that there were only twenty intermediate instructions in the whole 250 k.

  When we reached Golmud we were too short of time to join the immense queue of rally cars at the official fuel stop. Phil drove me to the check-in at the Golmud Hotel and then went off on his own to fuel up. I had read somewhere that Golmud was the home of one of only three potash-producing plants in the world, the others being in Salt Lake City and on the Dead Sea, all of which places I had now visited. It wasn't quite the Seven Summits, but if I hadn't been feeling miserable and ill I might have taken some quiet pleasure in this potash hat-trick.

  I got the book stamped in the hideous hotel's hideous foyer. I was proud that we'd helped out at the accident, and stopped for a rest, and still made it to the end of the day without having to beg for any allowances from the organisers. At the time control I also learned from earlier arrivals that we were all spread out for the night between half a dozen of the town's finest hotels, and if I thought the central and best Golmud Hotel was a dump I was in for an eye-opening experience when I finally saw ours. David Burlinson of Exodus told me how to find it, and apologised in advance.

  'Golmud to hell is only a local call,' he said, quoting a line from the route notes.

  I found Greg, who I had hoped might come out with me to look for progesterone.

  'I can't, Rosie. I've got to do the evening clinic.'

  I would have to wait for Phil Colley to arrive, and perhaps Chris Taylor, who as a pharmacist would understand drug formulations, might come with us to search the town for medicine.

  It was a warm, stuffy evening. I sank down on the hotel steps beside Andrew Bedingham. I felt weepy and exhausted and the images of the morning kept playing in a loop inside my head.

  'Are you okay?' he asked.

  'Not really.'

  He gave me a cigarette and we sat and watched the cars pulling in, and the dirty, weary, irritable navigators plodding past us with their road books in hand.

  'Why are we doing this? Do you have any idea?' Andrew muttered.

  'No,' I had to admit.

  The police were being difficult about parking and security. At last poor Phil Colley had interpreted enough of the evening's myriad problems to be able to attend to mine. With Chris Taylor, who was morose because the Camaro had picked up a three-minute penalty as a result of a navigator's error, we set off in a taxi to the People's Hospital.

  It was one of the grimmest places I have ever seen. The floors were awash with what might have been sewage, the walls filthy, the tiny barred windows smeared with dirt so that the light was even dimmer than the usual Chinese dirty yellow. On our way to the outpatients' clinic we passed a side ward and peeked in. The covers on the rickety bed had been flung back and there was a person-sized lake of blood on the mattress.

  In the clinic there was a small line of defeated people. A young woman with a bruised face and bandaged head looked as if she had been severely beaten up.

  We were nudged to the head of the queue, to a very young and harassed woman doctor. Phil Colley explained our mission, but she seemed to have only a hazy understanding of what we were asking for. We were directed to the hospital pharmacy.

  Behind a glass screen in the pharmacy were two more young women in dirty white coats. The shelves were almost bare except for a dozen brown glass bottles and some packets of bandages.

  'You'll be bloody lucky,' Chris said out of the side of his mouth.

  The pharmacists were unable to help or, more probably, to grasp what we needed. We were sent on again, this time to the mother and baby unit. There was another woman doctor, this one a little older but no less weary looking, attending to a mother and a tiny silent baby. No one seemed to take exception to three westerners striding in and expecting instant attention.

  The doctor listened patiently. But she thought I was asking for contraception, and offered an injection of depo-provera.

  There was nothing to be gained here. Empty-handed, we trailed back to the Golmud Hotel. At least I could go somewhere else – not next week, maybe not the week after that, but eventually I would be back in a civilised place where there would be reliable medical attention and all the drugs I needed. That wasn't the case for the unlucky residents of Golmud, and certainly it wasn't the case for the Tibetan workers we had given into the casual care of local drivers this morning. I wondered where my little old man with the broken pelvis might be, or even if he was still alive.

  It was also time for me to make a decision. I was now bleeding in heavy, frightening bursts. There was an airport, of sorts, at Golmud. I could presumably get a flight from here back to Beijing and thence to London. On the other hand if I went on beyond air ambulance cover – even if they had such luxuries based in Golmud – and if I did have the catastrophic haemorrhage that Greg and my doctor feared I might, then I would be entirely dependent on Greg and his team for medical support. And although he had told me he carried plasma expanders and copious amounts of oxygen, the plain fact that he wanted me to sign a disclaimer indicated that the doctor didn't rate his chances of saving me if the worst happened.

  I could pull out now and get home in one piece, or I could take the risk and go on.

  I tried to listen in to my body, although I didn't have much practice at it – usually it functioned so efficiently that I hadn't needed to establish much of a dialogue with my internal organs. But I didn't think I had a ruptured tumour or polyp or any of the possibilities my doctor had mentioned that wouldn't respond to progesterone even if I did get hold of some. I was sure that all the bleeding was caused by a hormonal blip, just one of those things, maybe exacerbated by stress. If I could just get the pills, I would be fine.

  I paced the swarming, polluted streets of Golmud, weighing up the situation. Caradoc and I had agreed that I should go on, and now I was at the point of no return before Lhasa I was still sure that we were right. I would get there, in my heart I was positive of it. I would get home safely to finish the job of bringing up my children.

  I tried to find Phil or Melissa to talk this over with them, but neither of them was anywhere to be seen. Phil had disappeared. He had fuelled the car, but he wasn't either at the Golmud Hotel or at ours, when I finally found it. The place was, as David Burlinson had warned, comically dreadful. It was staffed by angry blue-suited women whose preferred task seemed to be swabbing the corridor floors with grey mops slopped in and out of enamel buckets. Their efforts resulted in a scummy tide that slowly evaporated to leave treacherous puddles and a film of grit. I paddled up and down the dim stairways but couldn't find a room that corresponded to the symbol on my key fob. The ground floor was a bleak dining are
a with metal furniture and more enraged blue women who were slamming enamel bowls of food on the tables. Rally crews were sitting down to eat, with Mick Flick – heir to the Mercedes multi-millions – and Dan and JD cheerfully amongst them. The food was a small helping of noodles, some sweet and sour pork balls and plenty of green salad, obviously rinsed in river water if it had been washed at all.

  I thought I would give dinner a miss, and wandered back to the HQ hotel in search of Phil, and the day's order. The daily bulletin announced that after a week on the road 52 cars were still unpenalised, ours amongst them, and our start time in the morning was a civilised 9.36, which would give us plenty of opportunity to relax and enjoy the facilities at our hotel. I bumped into Greg again.

  'Any luck?' he asked, in what was now becoming a traditional exchange.

  'No. I'll just have to get myself to Lhasa.'

  Ignoring his warning frown, I slithered rapidly away. I'd made my decision and there was no point hanging round to give Greg the chance to dissuade me. The next encounter was with John Vipond, the Clerk of the Course himself. Looking at me with deceptively sleepy eyes he asked if Phil and I needed an extra time allowance for the day. Clearly he had heard about the small scene I'd made with Mike Summerfield. No, I answered, we'd made the controls within our times anyway.

  'Thank you for assisting at the accident,' he said. It was odd to be congratulated for doing what anybody with any human sympathy would have done, but it was true that – except for Mark and a small handful of other crews – the rally seemed untouched by the pathos and surprised by our involvement. The people were only Tibetans, after all. But I let it pass. Mr Vipond had plenty of other problems, one of which was now approaching.

  A young man in a leather coat was crossing the foyer, moving with robotic stiffness, his face a tragic mask. This was Herman Layher, widely known as Herman the German, the driver of car number 2, an immense and primitive 1907 La France. RO was very pleased and proud to have such a fascinating old machine on the rally, and invariably mentioned it in interviews and press releases, along with Lord Montagu's Vauxhall, which was now no longer with us. Herman had been suffering a number of mechanical problems, and was clearly not happy tonight. As I eavesdropped, I learned that he was suffering from hypothermia after driving his open vehicle through the wind and rain across the plateau. It had certainly been quite chilly up there, although none of the other crews in open vintage cars had as yet succumbed to frostbite. Now, following his very belated arrival at Golmud, there was no hotel room for him.

  John Vipond was soothing, 'We'll find a room. If the worst happens, Herman, you can have my bed. I'll make sure you get some sleep.'

  I wandered back yet again to the other hotel. I was beginning to worry about Phil, but Dan had found him. He had been in a little hidden parking space, obliviously working on the car. He needed some time to recover from the day and this was his way of shutting out the world. He was filthy, and exhausted. With two of us on the job we managed to find a room to go with the key. We stood in the doorway, looking in, and a bubble of hysterical laughter floated between us.

  There was a stone floor, two sagging beds and a torn curtain covering one third of the dirty window. There was one chair, a table, and a naked light-bulb, and nothing else whatsoever. Phil dumped the camp kitchen on the table and lit the gas burner and I got out the duty-free vodka and a jar of Marmite. It was time to eat, drink and be merry. Somehow we managed all three.

  'Room service, madam,' Phil said as he handed me another bowl of noodles with a dollop of instant chow mein. Rally Syndrome had set in. Everything was suddenly very, very funny. We lay back on the rancid beds and laughed over our dinner until we cried. Next Phil decided that this was the ideal moment to tackle me about my overweight luggage and made me open up my second, very small kitbag.

  'That can go, for a start, and those, and that.'

  My skipping rope and my new Nikes for keep-fit purposes (no time for that anyway), and my dear old orange-back Penguin copy of Our Mutual Friend. My Katharine Hamnett jeans, my shower gel, my co-ordinated sets of Agnes B. vests. And Vogue.

  'How much does that weigh?'

  It was the September issue, fat with ads for red glossy lipstick and bejewelled watches and buttery leather coats.

  'A lot.'

  He tossed it on the discard pile, but I secretly retrieved it. I let a few things go, and with some shoving and squeezing I managed to press everything else into the larger bag.

  'You can give all that throw-away stuff to the Nepali boys. They'll be thrilled with it.'

  'Particularly Our Mutual Friend, of course.'

  It was time to get ready for bed. I crossed the river of scummy water in the corridor to the bathroom, which consisted of a pungent squat-hole in a doorless cubicle with a urinal directly opposite. As I perched over the hole a Chinese workman came in and relieved himself. The plumbing had become disconnected, or more probably had never been connected at all, and the flow ran warmly over my feet. I squelched back to the room and told Phil about this. I hadn't heard him laugh so much since the Marine with the runs fell into the shit-pit so I went across and ineptly kicked him, shouting 'You rotten little fucker,' which made him laugh even more. I found myself helplessly giggling too.

  At last we lay down in the darkness. My ears immediately filled with a scratching and popping sound, coming from underneath my bed.

  'Phil? Phil! There's a rat in here. PHIL! It's a RAT, I can HEAR IT.'

  'So?'

  'So get UP and bloody well CATCH IT.'

  Sighing, he levered himself upright. I mounted the chair and he shoved my bed aside. Beneath it, in a puddle of what I hoped was water, was an electric cable with a twisted connection. From the bare spiralling wires a little scarlet fire was merrily fizzing and sparking.

  We hoisted the cable out of the puddle and draped it somewhere safer. I closed my eyes. A cocktail of physical exhaustion and laughter made a good sleeping draught. When I woke up it was bright daylight, and Phil was putting a mug of black tea beside my bed.

  By nine o'clock we were sitting in the line of cars queuing up for the start. Both of us were keyed-up and happy – no one could fail to be happy at the prospect of getting out of Golmud in half an hour's time. And then I looked up and saw Greg and John Vipond striding down the line. I didn't doubt for an instant that they were looking for car 82 – Greg was going to serve his disclaimer on me, I thought, with the Clerk of the Course as his witness. Well, so be it.

  'Can we have a word, Rosie?' Greg asked.

  'Of course. But we're on the start in, urn, a few minutes. Maybe later would be better . . .'

  'I'm afraid this won't wait.' They both looked inordinately serious. Greg was holding a white envelope. He said, 'Rosie, I'm sorry. You didn't get any progesterone last night, I can't authorise you to go on.'

  Not understanding properly, I said, 'It's okay, I'll sign a waiver and take the risk myself.'

  John Vipond broke in, stony-faced. 'It isn't a question of that. I am sorry to tell you that we are excluding you from the rally.'

  'What?'

  'We can't take you any further as a competitor, not at altitude. The medical risk is too great. I'm afraid you must fly back to Beijing. You may if you wish take the option of rejoining the rally at Kathmandu as touring entrants. Phil can take a passenger and drive the car onwards to meet you there.'

  Lord Montagu, maybe. He was still looking for a lift. The touring entrants were just there for the ride and the scenery. No competition, no adrenalin. I became aware of Phil, standing close beside my shoulder.

  Greg held out his envelope. Inside was a letter from him, handwritten but on official rally headed paper, countersigned by the Clerk of the Course. I skimmed the paragraphs.

  It is with great regret that, as the official doctor for the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, I must advise you that I consider that it would be unacceptably dangerous to your own health to continue the next leg of the rally . . .

  . .
. clinical condition of peri-menopausal uterine haemorrhage poses two dangers . . .

  . . . reduced tolerance to high altitude activity . . . increased risk of high-altitude cerebral or pulmonary oedema . . . medical evacuation not possible . . . large haemorrhage could easily prove fatal . . .

  I now consider it an unacceptable risk to your own health for you to continue in this event.

  Yours sincerely

  There was nothing new here. I handed the letter to Phil and heard him draw in a breath as he read it.

  'If I agree to fly to Kathmandu can we rejoin from there as a sporting entry?'

  'No, I'm afraid not,' John Vipond said immediately, without a hint of a waver. I knew he meant it.

  'I don't want to be relegated to tourist. We want to win.'

  He smiled briefly. 'You aren't going to win.'

  'Well then, we'll follow the field anyway. You can't stop us.'

  I glanced at Phil. He looked unhappy, but he was nodding in agreement.

  'We shall have to withdraw medical and mechanical support. You won't get your cards stamped at the controls, you will be outside the rally organisation.'

  Phil's eyes met mine. 'Can we talk about this?'

  There were now 20 minutes before our departure time. If we missed our stamp at the morning control we'd be as good as out anyway.

  The Clerk nodded. 'Let us know what your decision is.' Briefly he put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a hug. 'I'm sorry, love.'

  We sat in the Amazon, numbly gazing at the cars as they rolled away from the start. It was unthinkable that we wouldn't be following them when our turn came. Already it had become much more than a routine; the rally was a whole life in miniature. Phil and I were partners. I was too jealous even to think of him taking someone else and driving across the Himalayas without me.

  'I want to go on,' I said. We could follow along outside the rally organisation if necessary. Phil was a mountain guide. We had our own camping and cooking supplies, we'd be self-reliant and we'd be driving across the roof of the world, which was what we had both been looking forward to for months. The rally meant only a few stamps on a few pieces of card, after all, and the possibility of a tin medal at the end of it.